


Bury a Friend

by things-we-used-tc-share (Heavydirtys0ul)



Series: the billie eilish tapes [5]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Mental Health problems, Other, platonic/familial - Freeform, questionable/complex relationship, suicide warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 04:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21237830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heavydirtys0ul/pseuds/things-we-used-tc-share
Summary: Roman never thought the day would come, and he certainly doesn't know what to do now the day is here.





	Bury a Friend

Roman feels cold. The sky is empty today and the wind is carding over his body. He is cold, but he cannot feel it; he _wants_to feel it more than anything but the layers of his skin have turned to stone in the wake of an emptiness he had never expected to _feel_. Roman Prince, who experienced every emotion under the sun at once on a good day, feels _nothing _right now.

And why? Why today, why this bitter Autumn morning? Roman’s brother is…_gone_.

Roman and Remus never had the best of relationships, as far as siblings go they were on the bitter end of the spectrum. As children they had been the best of friends, twins in mind, body and spirit; wherever Remus went, Roman went and the two were practically one. Then they’d gotten older and their differences had began to flower, Remus a disaster who destroys most things he touches and Roman who loves so _much _so often that he can barely discern himself from his feelings.

Roman had loved his brother. Remus was…a mess, a chaos, a storm that is always teetering on falling over the edge; he was catastrophic and messy and hurt Roman so very much, but he loved him. Because it wasn’t Remus’ fault that he was who he was, no more than Roman gets to choose who he is and what he suffers from. He loved him because they were brothers, and no matter what they had each other even when it felt like they didn’t.

They had forgiven each other so often that it was assumed every family meeting started with an apology. They had butted heads more than most and had fought each other relentlessly; once Remus had almost taken Roman’s entire eye out and Roman had almost put Remus in hospital. Now he cannot remember what that argument was about, but he’d do absolutely anything for just one more _bitter _storm between the two of them, one more fist fight, one more _argument_. All things he would not ever get to do again.

Roman stares at the empty sky, he stares at it’s endless grey and cannot feel the wind carding over his body, he doesn’t feel his frozen fingers or the goose bumps on his bare arms. He doesn’t hear the trees whisper and doesn’t notice the gravel crunching under his feet. He barely acknowledges the way his brown curls blow into his dark eyes, or the tremble of his pale fingers; Roman notices nothing. He notices no sound or sight or _feeling_, except the steady beat of his heart in his chest and the collapsing feel of his lungs caving inwards.

He pulls his hand out of his pocket and a chain dangles from his fingers, swinging with the momentum of a memory that had long since faded. A small locket dangles at the lowest point; it’s shaped like a heart because at some point the two of them had been convinced they had been grown from the same organs. They hadn’t, not really anyway. That day, the day he had given him the locket, Remus had a break down and he’d screamed and shouted at Roman, pushing him away and begging him to leave him alone, convinced Roman should not be around him. Roman had held his hand and insisted he wasn’t leaving.

It had gotten worse from there, Remus had started getting more violent and more angry, he’d lash out more. It broke Roman’s heart, but he knows it’s breaking Remus more.

And now, now he’s here, and Remus is _not_. Roman is finally and irreparably without his brother the way he had _wished_on days where anger was all he had left. He had wished too hard, far too hard, because this is not what he wanted and this is not how he can live_, how can he live_? _How do you **live**? How do you wake up in the morning,_he thinks to himself, _go to work, go about your life_? How does he breathe when his lungs feel like they’re suffocating him, how does he put one foot in front of the other? How does he look at that contact in his phone and know _no one_will pick up when he rings?

He had forgiven Remus so many times but now he thinks he cannot forgive himself, he cannot look forward with these ghosts living in his heart, in this locket. So he sighs, takes a deep breath, gets in his car and _drives_.

Roman drives for hours and hours, through the setting sun and the rise of the stars, sewn like diamonds into a blanket called night. He glances at them and tells himself one of them must be Remus; chaotic, explosive and yet somehow utterly _beautiful_on days when darkness seeps away. He keeps driving. He drives up over the hills and further to the edge of the sea, he parks at the edge of a cliff and stands as a silhouette against the sunrise. The sky painted itself in angry reds and warming oranges and bashful pinks; and Roman, but a shadow in the turning Earth. _The world still turns, _he muses to himself, _knowing mine has ground to a halt_.

He stands at the edge and breathes so deeply that he thinks his ribs rattles. Roman holds the locket in his hand and stares at the crashing waves and sharp rocks, he thinks about them, about how they might feel against him, he thinks about falling. Then he thinks about Remus. He thinks about his brother and how much of an asshole he was, he thinks about how much of an asshole Roman had been to him too, he thinks about how despite that they still loved each other. Remus had lost a battle so that Roman could win, and he’d die twice before he’d want Roman to follow in his footsteps.

Roman pulls the locket over his head; the heart rests over his own. He watches the sun as it rises, opens his mouth and screams into the abyss of the world, to the great cavernous sky and plunging depths of the sea. He screams in anguish, in pain, he screams because there is nothing else he can do. Then he kneels in the grass, and he cries. He cries for the brother, the hectic friend he’d buried. He cries because he is sad and in some ways, because he is happy. Because Remus is happy now, he’s safe, wherever he may be.

Then, Roman forgives Remus one last time.


End file.
